Three Years (Premium)

Steven Sinofsky once observed that three years is “about right” for each release of Windows. He may have been onto something if a new rumor is true: after a strange seven years of indeterminate updating, Microsoft appears to be moving back to the three-year release model again. Sort of.

It used to be so easy. Microsoft would release a major Windows version every three years, support it for ten years, with five years of mainstream support and five years of extended support. And despite its antitrust and Longhorn troubles, the software giant pretty much held to that schedule in the 21st century with Windows XP (2001), Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2, 2004), Windows Vista (2006/2007), Windows 7 (2009), and Windows 8 (2012).

Of course, the world also changed in this time. Mobile systems like iPhone and Android displaced Windows as the mainstream personal computing platform, triggering some overreactions that we’re still dealing with today and, perhaps tellingly, the new rumored updated schedule does not correct. And while the web is an even bigger platform than mobile, it’s biggest benefit---the ability to update a service, site, or app once, in the cloud, and not require client-side updates---is somewhat offset by its ongoing limitations and the inability of mobile and desktop platform makers to successfully emulate it.

They tried. Microsoft’s reaction to these then-emerging competitors was to fire our friend Mr. Sinofsky and engage in a series of “rapid releases” that started with Windows 8.1 in 2013 and continue to this day. Microsoft shipped two more updates to Windows 8 and then Windows 10 in 2015, and that team’s original goal was to deliver three so-called feature updates---actually, major version upgrades---every year. They quickly toned that down to two per year, pleasing no one, but it is not coincidental that this team was previously responsible only for Windows Phone. Microsoft was trying to apply its learnings in mobile to the desktop.

It failed miserably. Windows as a Service (WaaS), as this initiative was called, proved only that updating a legacy desktop platform as if it were an online service was an unreliable mess and that, even if it were possible, it would be disruptive for customers. Microsoft didn’t care: over the intervening years, it has only accelerated the ways it can, and the schedule by which it will, update Windows.

By the time we got to Windows 11, we were fed the biggest lie of all: Microsoft has heard your concerns, we were told, and it will only issue one feature update---again, a major version upgrade---every year. But by this point, the shackles were off, and you can forget about all that messaging around A, B, C, and D updates every month: Microsoft can, will, and has updated Windows 10 and 11 arbitrarily and without warning at any time it pleases. It can update/upgrade the operating system at will. And does. That feature update schedule is meaningless.

What’s odd a...